City Chicks: Raising Ethical Urban Livestock

One of my favorite party tricks, when I'm among people I don't know, is to casually slip in a reference to chickens. "Well, I'm going to have to head home and make sure the coop is closed", runs one common refrain. Or, in reference to a baking project: "I'm just waiting until we have enough eggs for a chiffon cake." Once we've established that I don't live out in the country (our yard is basically a postage stamp) and that we don't really plan on eating them (my husband is a vegetarian), people are really excited to learn about the experience of having a backyard poultry flock. Which is great, because I love to talk about it.

Most of the credit for this project, in truth, goes to my husband, who read about chickens being a frugal investment and slowly convinced me that the whole project was doable. I have to also give him most of the credit for building the coop and keeping the birds fed and watered, particularly after we had a child and I went back to school. That being said, we're both fans of our unusual pets, and so I feel qualified to write a little about the experience.

About a year after we bought a house together, I headed off to work and came back home to three adorable day-old fuzzballs, a Rhode Island Red named Caprica and two barred Plymouth Rocks named Son-Mi and Dagny. We haven't stopped since. Though the original three have passed away from predator attacks, Batman, Countess Chocula, and Phoenix are rooting around in the yard as I write, and I'm about to head downstairs to check on our newest planned additions to the flock.

So here, in internet-appropriate list form, are some of the reasons why we keep giant birds in our backyard as pets:

We just got 2 chicks two weeks ago, and so I'm re-experiencing the fun of watching tiny animals grow. Every day I go down to check on them and stay to chat for a little bit, hold them, and let them play around on the floor. While they don't run to me exactly, I've had chicks settle on my palm to rest as much as jump around, flap their wings, and cheep at me. Butterfly, a Buff Orpington, is quiet and usually calms easily once she's been held. By contrast, Lambeosaurus (a light Brahma) is likely to scold me, take a few turns trying to fly off my hand, and run at top speed in, well, all directions before calming. They can both be wonderfully mischievous, and it's fun to watch them explore new environments and plot at the different volumes and variations of cheeps.

We also currently have a set of older chickens outside (about three years old), who we didn't raise from chicks. While they do keep their distance from me, they still provide me with plenty of entertainment: I really enjoy looking up from my work to see them hunting and pecking around our backyard, chattering at each other, and occasionally scolding me if the window's open. When the sun hits them, their black feathers shine green, and their red combs stand out brilliantly against the grass and plants.

Let me be clear: there are definitely start-up costs to chickens. They need somewhere to live, and whether you build a coop or buy one, you're going to have to spend some money. They also need feeders and waterers, but past that, your main ongoing expense is just going to be bags of feed and an occasional wood chip purchase for the interior of the coop. If you're starting with chicks, you'll need to set up a brooder, which is basically a box with a feeder and waterer and heat lamp. That's really about it. I'm not sure that our chickens have paid themselves off in savings, but they're inexpensive pets, even more so because they do make me food.

I can sometimes be a lazy person, and the chickens we have are pretty okay with that. Other than needing food and water and an intact coop, they don't really care if I don't hang out with them all day or even at all. They're perfectly happy to hunt and pack and sunbathe on their own. Chickens are meant to survive as a flock, and so they've formed their own little social group without me. This means that I can be as involved as I want and not feel guilty, like I do on the days when I don't have much time to snuggle with the cat. My husband is mainly responsible for making sure the gate is open during the day, and he closes it at night (the chickens tuck themselves in) so predators can't get in.

Missouri has notoriously fluctuating weather. In one week we had 80-degree weather and then flurries, so it's important that outdoor pets be flexible. In the winter, we move a heat lamp into the coop that we can plug when the temperatures drop way below zero, and during the summer we manage by filling an unused litter box with water and running the sprinkler. So far the chickens seem to have taken everything in stride.

As I mentioned before, our backyard is tiny; we don't live in the country, and we're not good at lawn work. Chickens, thankfully, don't actually need to free-range for acres to be happy. They poke around our roughly 20' x 20' space peacefully. On days when they aren't free-ranging, they're in an enclosed "run" that is roughly 3 x 6 under the coop.

We generate a fair amount of food waste in our house: I like to cook, and trying to keep healthy snack foods like apples and bananas on hand means that there are often skins and pits that are discarded. All of those pieces (with a few exceptions like avocados, which are poisonous to chickens) go in a container and are taken out to the chickens daily to be gobbled. Not only am I reducing my waste, but I'm giving more nutrition to the chickens and keeping them interested in foraging.

This is an area I have yet to master, but it's worth considering. Chickens love to dig and scratch, and so they like turning over compost. Not only that, their droppings are nitrogen-rich, which means they can be a component of building fertilizer (although this must be done with caution on food crops). Gardeners use them to eat insects before planting and turn over the soil in raised beds.

Raising chickens can be a labor of love: you can research the characteristics of different breeds, design and build your own coop, train your chickens, modify their diets based on the seasons, and plant gardens full of plants for them to eat. You can also buy a ready-made coop, buy egg-laying chickens online, and just make sure they're fed while you wait for the eggs to start coming. No matter what approach you take, you'll need to do a little reading just so you know when they're sick, how to care for them, and when you need to ask someone for help. Thankfully, the fact that the backyard chicken thing has taken off means that the internet does have a lot of reliable information and forums of people willing to help.

Our backyard runs along our residential street, and people can't help but notice the red coop in the back. For some, this is a novelty, and for others, it calls up deeply nostalgic memories. I've talked to many of our elderly neighbors about the farms they lived on as kids, and I've told many kids and young families about what are chickens are named and why we have them (those that are interested often get free eggs to take home as well). In addition, both my cat and my toddler love watching chicks and chickens, and no one has gotten hurt yet.

I can't say enough about how much I love having my own supply of eggs. I'm an avid cook and baker, and while I can't prove it scientifically, I believe that my eggs are better than what you get in the supermarket. The yolks are usually a vivid orange, and they taste delicious. Getting volume in my baking recipes is rarely a problem, and I've never had an egg go rotten. Past taste considerations, just knowing what my chickens eat and where they lay and what lifestyle they lead gives me peace of mind. And the fact that I almost always have eggs in my kitchen makes planning cooking easier. We're on a fairly tight budget, and our lives can sometimes feel a little chaotic with competing schedules and events and plans. Having ever-present eggs is a blessing. Need breakfast? How about eggs, any number of ways? People coming over? I have flour and sugar in my pantry, and with eggs it's not too hard to scrounge up something for a cake or loaf or roll or something else delicious.  

If we're talking about food, it's also fair to note that lots of people raise chickens to eat them. This gets very tricky very quickly. I'll state for the record that while eating our chickens isn't really in the plan, it also hasn't been excluded. We spend enough time with them and on them that gaining a chicken dinner isn't enough reason for me to end a life. That being said, once they stop really producing eggs, we will probably want to make space for new egg-producers. When we hit that point, there is a chance that we'll be eating a chicken dinner. If that happens, I plan to cook every part I can dream up a use for and be as grateful as possible. We'll see.

I hope I've managed to give you a solid perspective on the strange halfway point between pets and livestock that our chickens occupy, and maybe give you some food for thought about the merits of keeping them. 

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